External antenna mod

[Darrvid]

Hi all. I get really poor reception of wifi on my laptop, so I need to boost the reception. I opened up the laptop to take a look at the wifi card inside. It's a broadcom, and uses MMCX connections for the installed antenna. There seems to be two, one listed as 'main' and the other as 'aux'. I can easily disconnect these antennas because of the connection type. Would installing an external antenna be as easy as these steps?

Unplug the 'aux' antenna. Plug in a pigtail mmcx-->female N connector

Mount the N connector to allow an external antenna to be plugged in (by drilling the case).

If this is all thats needed, will my wifi still work without the external antenna since I'm not unplugging the 'main' connector?

Edit: As a second possibility, I have a spare cardbus wifi card. I'm no good at soldering, but what's the possibility of modding that to accept an external antenna? I'm aware that cards are out there that have this already, but I can't afford them.

Thanks for any help

 

[holden j caufield]

I just had broken LCD and I took 2 antennas from the screen. Most mini pci cards use 2 U.FL connects. Main and Aux and downloaded the PDF to take apart my lappy and routed the antennas. BTW I believe the broadcom chips are among the worst performers. Atheros > Intel > Broadcom

 

[nweaver]

realize that when you add a connector (MMCX->N->Antenna) you are adding signal loss. Also, the cable from the connector to the antenna, unless VERY high quality looses signal very quickly as well.
When you get a bigger antenna, it's not always better
If your problem is not signal related, but rather noise related. A more powerful antenna will not fix this.

The best option to solve this is NOT to mod your laptop, but rather to fix the source, by boosting AP power, adding APs, reducing noise, etc

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: nweaver
The best option to solve this is NOT to mod your laptop, but rather to fix the source, by boosting AP power, adding APs, reducing noise, etc

That's my favorite approach, especially with adding a slightly higher gain antenna to the source AP. Alternately, sometimes changing the placement of the unit can help.

If you can't do anything about the source or if you already tried and you really, really want to rig up a better antenna...

Rover Portable Laptop Mount $13
Option for MC, MMCX and RP-MMCX connectors. You then plug in a high gain rubber duck antenna and off you go, with a wire running into your notebook.

For even better performance (especially since holden said your Broadcom card was a bad performer), get the antenna and laptop mount above with an MC connector and use a PCMCIA card like this Buffalo WLI-CB-G54HP. That card uses an MC connector, is a decent brand and is "high power" to boot, putting out more power than "normal" wireless devices.

 

[Darrvid]

Thanks for the helpful responses!

I don't have control over the source, I use my laptop at school, library etc. I didn't know that about broadcoms, but I decided to crack my netgear card open in any case. I read some more on google about it and ordered a U.Fl connector (slightly different size than what I need, but it's the closest thats available) and a 9dbi rubber duck antenna. I'll post back here on how it turns out in case anyones interested.